Learning

I’m still stitching on the indigo square. It has become a bit of an albatross. Every month, I tell myself that I’ll finish it in time for the next guild meeting, but then the meeting comes along, and it looks no closer to being finished.

Still, I can look at it as a learning process. For instance, I’ve learned that couching doesn’t stand out on polka-dot fabric, and that it isn’t a quick filling stitch. I’ve also discovered that it’s easier to coil a bit of thread and stitch that down than to fill a circle with couching.

Also, I’ve discovered an advantage to embroidering on the bus: the light is very good. Generally, I think of the bus as a challenging environment to craft in. But as I was stitching on my sofa yesterday, with the overhead light and reading light on, I still struggled to see the indigo thread against the indigo fabric to thread into the needle. It struck me that though it’s hard to thread a needle on a moving bus, it is easy to see what you’re doing. Not surprising, as the buses have as much window space as possible, giving lots of natural light, I just hadn’t realized it before. So even when you’re working on a project you’re totally sick of, there’s still something new to learn.